Lollapalooza was written as a fortieth birthday present for Simon Rattle who has been a friend and collaborator for many years. The term “lollapalooza” has an uncertain etymology, and just that vagueness may account for its popularity as an archetypical American word. It suggest something large, outlandish, oversized, not unduly refined. H.L. Mencken suggests it may have originally meant a knockout punch in a boxing match.
I was attracted to it because of this internal rhythm: da-da-da-DAAH-da. Hence, in my piece, the word is spelled out in the trombones and tubas, C-C-C-Eb-C (emphasis on the Eb) as a kind of idée fixe. The “lollapalooza” motive is only one of a profusion of other motives, all appearing and evolving in a repetitive chain of events that moves this dancing behemoth along until it ends in a final shout by the horns and trombones and a terminal thwack on timpani and bass drum.
Program note by composer
Aaron Copland, born in 1900, lived a long and distinguished life not just as a composer, but also as a conductor, writer, concert organizer, and teacher. He was justly hailed as the “Dean of American Composers” and always seemed to be in the center of things, a generous colleague, and an inspiring model. His compositional style changed notably over the decades. At the age of 20 he went to Paris to study, and the music of Stravinsky became a major influence; next jazz emerged as another important influence. During his early 30s Copland went through a phase in which he wrote quite challenging Modernist pieces, angular and dissonant, even if never as extreme as those associated at the time with Arnold Schoenberg and his colleagues in Vienna.
And then came a decade or so, beginning in the late 1930s, when Copland composed his most popular and enduring compositions, works such as the ballets Billy the Kid and Rodeo, the Fanfare for the Common Man (which he incorporated into his magnificent Third Symphony), and Lincoln Portrait. These pieces seemed to capture the American experience in vital and unexpected ways. In the summer of 1943 he started a collaboration with the noted choreographer and dancer Martha Graham for a new ballet that was eventually given the title Appalachian Spring and that became one of his signal populist pieces.
Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge commissioned the ballet for Graham to choreograph, accompanied by a small ensemble of a dozen performers. She initially sought works from Copland and Mexican composer Carlos Chávez, but when the latter got delayed she invited Paul Hindemith and Darius Milhaud. Copland’s ballet premiered in October 1944 at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. It was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in music the following year.
Copland had no clear scenario when he began composing the piece that for quite a while he simply called Ballet for Martha. When he finally saw what she had done just a few days before the premiere he did not think it reflected what he had in mind with the music but was nonetheless magnanimous: “Music composed for one kind of action had been used to accompany something else. ... But that kind of decision is the choreographer’s, and it doesn’t bother me a bit, especially when it works.” Copland enjoyed recounting the story of the title, which was Graham’s late addition inspired by a Hart Crane poem. The composer recalled how people would endlessly come up to him remarking that they saw the Appalachians and felt spring in the music, neither of which had been part of the conception. He confessed: “I have even begun to see the Appalachians myself a bit.”
Graham provided a very short description of the story for the Washington premiere: “Part and parcel of our lives is that moment of Pennsylvania spring when there was ‘a garden eastward of Eden.’ Spring was celebrated by a man and woman building a house with joy and love and prayer; by a Revivalist and his followers in their shouts of exaltation; by a pioneering woman with her dreams of the Promised Land.”
Copland originally composed the ballet for just 13 instruments, from which he later extracted a concert suite of eight continuous movements scored for large orchestra. In the 1950s Eugene Ormandy proposed that Copland make a full orchestration for Graham’s company to perform with The Philadelphia Orchestra in 1954, but not all work on this was completed and some parts remained that needed to be fleshed out in order to match the original chamber version. This was undertaken several years ago as a collaboration between Aaron Sherber, music director of the Martha Graham Dance Company; musicologist Jennifer DeLapp-Birkett; and Philip Rothman of the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, who enlisted the composer David Newman to enhance the orchestration by scoring about 50 measures of music.
The full ballet includes several sections of more dissonant, intense, Modernist music than the predominantly pastoral and folksy music familiar from the suite, thus resulting in an experience of greater musical variety. Although much of the ballet has a folk-like feel, in fact Copland borrowed just one tune, a Shaker song, used 36 for a set of variations. He explained, “The theme—sung by a solo clarinet—was taken from a collection of Shaker melodies compiled by Edward D. Andrews, and published under the title The Gift to Be Simple. The melody I borrowed and used almost literally is called ‘Simple Gifts.’” This part became so popular that Copland extracted it for a separate piece, Variations on a Shaker Melody, in versions for band and full orchestra.
Although Copland did not have the story in mind while composing the work, the music well suits the unfolding scenes of Graham’s ballet, beginning with a solemn introduction of the principal characters (the bride and her betrothed, the preacher, and the pioneer woman), progressing through a duo for the man and woman, a lively Revivalist event with square dancing, scenes of daily activity for the bride and her farmer-husband (which unfold as the variations on the Shaker theme), and a peaceful close that brings the work full circle.
Program note by Christopher H. Gibbs
The life of Florence Price (née Smith) was filled with both joy and sorrow. Price was a prodigy, graduating high school as valedictorian at the age of 14. She hailed from near Little Rock, Arkansas. After graduation, she went on to obtain higher education in music at the New England Conservatory in Boston. She studied piano and organ, composing her first symphony and graduating with honors (1906) with a double major in organ and music education. She then studied privately with Professor/Composer George Whitefield Chadwick, who continued to be a mentor to Price for many years. Returning to Arkansas, she taught at the college level, married, and had three children (two girls and a boy).
Deeply concerned about racial oppression, the family moved to Chicago in 1927. In the North, their timing was good. New York, Chicago, and elsewhere were experiencing the “Harlem Renaissance” during the 1920s-30s. Price’s conservative neo-Romantic compositional style fit the expectations and desires of concert-hall audiences. Her Symphony No. 1 in E Minor (composed in 1931-32) won the Wanamaker competition, and the work drew the attention of Frederick Stock, conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Stock was so impressed with the work that he programmed and conducted its world premiere in 1933. Thus, Florence Price became the first Black American woman to have an orchestral work performed by a major U.S. orchestra. Price’s career was launched. She composed a total of six symphonies, other orchestral music, concertos for the piano and for the violin, many songs and vocal arrangements, choral works and arrangements, and piano music (chiefly educational).
Florence Price composed her Symphony No. 3 during 1939-40. Its premiere took place during 1940 by the Detroit Civic Orchestra, Valter Poole, conductor. The work is still being performed today. Earlier in 2021, it was heard in Stockholm, Sweden. The work is scheduled for a 2022 performance in New York’s Carnegie Hall. In Classic-Romantic fashion, Symphony No. 3 consists of four movements:
I. Andante; Allegro: The moderately paced introduction offers elements of mystery and foreboding. This mood is suddenly broken by the movement’s main body. Rapidly changing ideas soon give way to more lyrical designs, with several references to a downcast Negro spiritual. This then becomes the substance for development until interrupted by rapid, jockos’ musical ideas. Sadness again pulls the mood down, only to be interrupted by spirited motives form alternating sections of the orchestra (strings, woodwinds, and brass), which lead to the movement’s sharp conclusion.
II. Andante ma non troppo. Here is Price’s unique blend of post-Romantic style and echoes of Negro spirituals. Her harmonic style is entirely personal and intimate. In the middle of the movement, the brass section plays a few phrases in Spiritual style, echoed and developed in turn by the woodwinds and strings in the manner of a Dvořák symphony.
III. Juba: Allegro: The “Juba” was originally a dance brought over to the southern U.S. by African slaves. Its syncopated rhythms invited stomping, slapping, and patting the arms, legs, chest, and cheeks: thus the popular African-American expression, “pattin’ Juba.” In addition to its direct ethnic expression, this movement is an entertaining interlude in a thus-far completely serious symphony.
IV. Scherzo: Finale: Although “Juba” stands in the position of a traditional symphonic scherzo, Price saves her actual scherzo for the cheerful, witty finale to this symphony. In fast triple-time themes and individual ideas, she constructs a superior final movement filled with ceaseless jubilance. This music (in addition to “Juba”) balances out the seriousness of the first two movements.
Rotem Weinberg is an Israeli conductor known for his profound musicality, creative programming,and polished performances. He is a cross-genre musician, at home in classical, operatic, and pops repertoires alike.
Weinberg comes to the CVPA from the University of Michigan where he served as Music Director of the Campus Symphony Orchestra and the Michigan Pops Orchestra. He also filled the role of Assistant Conductor to the University of Michigan’s prestigious orchestra program, supporting the work of four student orchestras as well as cover conductor of the University of Michigan Opera Theater. Weinberg has also served as Music Director of the Spectrum Orchestra in Birmingham, Michigan; Associate Conductor of the Michigan Youth Symphony Orchestra; and Cover Conductor for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.
Weinberg has participated in workshops and masterclasses with world renowned orchestral conductors, including Simon Rattle, Zubin Mehta, Zsolt Nagy, and Christopher Lyndon Gee. An advocate of contemporary music, Weinberg has collaborated and premiered works by composers Tyler Arnold, Sawyer Denton, Natalie Moller, Nina Shekhar, and Samuel Sussman.
In Israel, he led several orchestral, wind, and vocal ensembles, achieving national acclaim as a conductor and an educator. He received honors and awards for his conducting and musicianship, including the America-Israel Cultural Foundation Excellence Grant in Orchestral Conducting, the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music Excellence Scholarship, and the Tel Aviv University Dean of Arts Excellence Award for his outstanding musical and academic achievements.
Weinberg holds a BM in orchestral conducting from the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music at Tel-Aviv University. He earned MM and DMA degrees in orchestral conducting from the University of Michigan, studying with the renowned conductor and pedagogue Kenneth Kiesler.